Our trip to Jackson, WY and Yellowstone National Park

Feel free to skim. There will not be a quiz at the end of class! Or you can get a pictorial version (or see more photos--really, I couldn't put them all in, or tell the whole story in this blog post) by clicking here.

We had a beautiful woodsy room at the Snow King Resort in Jackson, WY. The boys and I tagged along when Ryan went for the annual ITE Conference (for traffic engineers) which is held at that resort every year.

The boys knew they'd have to share a bed, but we didn't think they'd get this cozy. Isn't it adorable? It's nice when they act like they like each other.
I took the boys to a nearby park and to see the arches made of elk antlers while Ryan was in his meetings. We bravely ventured into one of the hundreds of interesting stores, but that was enough adventure for me. It's safer to keep the boys outside. We also enjoyed the cable tv! The boys got to watch shows they never get to see, like Diego and the Backyardigans.Ryan submitted a paper and did a presentation about the economic advantages of roundabouts. He presented last year, too. He's really making a name for himself! I convinced him to stay for the closing luncheon, where the papers were judged and a winner announced. He won! He and his co-writer/presenter will get plaques to hang in their office. Cool! I bought Frosties from Wendy's to celebrate.
Then we headed north to Grand Teton National Park. I think any picture in front of these gorgeous mountains turns out great! They're amazing.

We didn't see much of that park. It was pretty much just the way we got to Yellowstone. But we saw enough frozen-over lakes and snow on the ground to get the feeling we might freeze while camping.

Bison! We must be in Yellowstone. We were so excited to see the shaggy creatures at first, but we quickly tired of them. They were everywhere! We even saw their hoof-prints and "buffalo chips" in our campground, feet from where we camped.
Ryan and Jared by one of the many hot springs. Many of the trails were closed, but we managed to find enough to do.Zach cheesing it up in front of Old Faithful.
Jared really enjoyed his new-found reading ability on this trip. He read signs to Zach and worked on his Junior Ranger packet without asking many questions about what to do. He feels so grown up!
In the hotel in Jackson, Jared and I watched a show about the lodges of the national parks. They featured the Old Faithful Inn, so we just HAD to go take the tour!
This is our campground. Zach took this picture. He took a lot of photos on this trip! I think we have a budding photographer, although he makes me super-nervous when he's holding my precious camera!
We borrowed the trailer from Ryan's coworker. It was almost too heavy for the Jeep to pull, poor Jeep! It saved our skin from freezing, though! I wish I'd taken a photo of the 5+ feet of snow we saw in South Yellowstone. When we got to West Yellowstone (where we camped) there were only isolated piles of the stuff. It hovered around freezing each night, though, so we were glad to have real walls instead of a tent.
A steaming creek flows into the Firehole River. It was so cool!Our sleeping accommodations inside the trailer. Jared was so excited to sleep on that bunk! He fell off the first night, but miraculously landed between people, not on them.
Our second full day, we drove to Mammoth Hot Springs. We'd only seen bison, ravens, and a bald eagle until then, oh, and an elk carcass, but we hadn't seen any live elk yet. Then we pulled into a parking space to see a cow just feet away! As we paid to take showers in the hotel across the street, two elk came right up to the front windows of the hotel. The boys got a nice close look through the glass. By the way, the showers were worth every penny!
My boys by Gibbon Falls.
Jared and Mom at the beginning of our hike around Mammoth Hot Springs. It was hot, and we'd prepared for cold weather! Also, 80% of the springs were dry, making it rather boring. It was quite a long a disappointing hike. The very end of the trail was really neat, but we decided it wasn't worth it.
This was at the end of the long boring hike. Very cool, but not worth walking over a mile uphill to see it.We finally got to see some bull elk on our drive to Lamar Valley. The valley is called "the Serengeti of America" because of all the animals you can see there. One visitor said he'd seen 4 grizzlies there that morning, but we only saw elk and bison. It was gorgeous, though! We also overheard some volunteers calling in wolf sightings, but they had giant telescopes. We couldn't see anything with the naked eye.
On our way home from Lamar Valley, cars began to pull over and we got to see a grizzly bear! See the hump over his shoulders? The light was fading and I didn't have a tripod, so most of my photos were blurry.
Just a little way down the road from the grizzly, a wolf had returned to snack on the elk carcass we'd seen earlier that day. That morning, we'd seen a bald eagle nibbling on it, and had heard the story. A pack of wolves had taken the elk's calf, then drove it out into this lake. The wolves watched from shore until they decided they had to go in the water after it. Black wolves really freak me out, but he was so far away that I could watch without shivers going up my spine.

The next day, we packed up to leave the park, but thought we'd see one last site first. We got stuck behind a herd of bison who chose to walk down the road instead of across it. It took us an hour and a half to go 12 miles! Needless to say, we got away from the park late.
We had the hardest time finding an open ranger station so Jared could get his Junior Ranger badge! He'd worked so hard on it! Zach had a paper, too, to cross of all the animals he saw. The boys told the ranger all about their visit to Yellowstone and all the animals and geysers they saw. He was so nice and gave both boys Junior Ranger patches!
We were really lucky to see so many animals in the park. The one animal on our wish list that we didn't see was a moose. But about an hour after we left the park, we came across this shaggy shedding moose near the side of the road. Can you believe I'd never seen a live moose before? We were very excited to cross it off on our list. Oh, and I also spotted a bufflehead and got to cross that off my "life list" (list of birds I've seen.)
We decided there was no way we could make it all the way back to Boise that day. We were in Rexburg at dinner time, with 5 hours left to drive! And we still had to drop off the camping trailer in Idaho Falls (where Ryan's coworker lives). So we decided to spend one more night in the trailer (in the coworker's driveway) and took our time getting to IF. We walked around the BYU Idaho campus a bit and saw the temple there.

The boys had a blast playing with Caleb, Ryan's coworker's son. They decided that he needs to come visit us in Meridian.

Next morning, we stopped for a while in Chubbuck, where Ryan is designing a new roundabout. It was cool to see the "before," and I'm sure we'll see the "after" next year when we go to Jackson again.

Even with an early start, Ryan wasn't going to make it back into the office in time for a meeting, so I drove while he did a conference call from the passenger seat. I love technology!

We had a great trip, although we're thoroughly tuckered out. That's not so bad, because even though we didn't sleep on the ground while camping, our soft beds have never felt so inviting!